Clouds
by TreesAreGreen
Summary: The Marauders generation. The Dark Lord is rising in power. And he's recruiting.   When Ellie runs into a familiar face from the past, can she see past the horrific events that seem to point directly to him and to He Who Must Not Be Named?
1. Faces From The Past

**This is my first go at publishing fan fiction, so hopefully it'll go down okay-_ Clouds_ is a Marauders generation Potter fanfic, and the main characters are my own. Please review and tell me what you think and how I can improve! **

**Soundtrack for this chapter: Whispers in the Dark (Skillet) Cemetery Drive (My Chemical Romance) and Drive (R.E.M)**

**So this is _Clouds-_ Hope you like it!**

**~TreesAreGreen~**

**Chapter One**

**Aaron**

It's the only place open this late at night. Tinderbox light shines out through the grimy windows, casting tentative reflections across the sodden concrete. Rain slashes and seeps across the grey ground, and runs sorrowfully down the glass.

Rumbles crash across the sky as I stand there, staring numbly into the bar. I can feel the rain trickle slowly down the back of my neck. I feel the rivulets glance off my face, drip from my hands to the ground. My lip curls in distaste at the thought of going in, but I'm soaked and I have a few hours to kill.

As I push through the door, the warmth hits me. The bar is quiet, the light dim. To one side there is a mist of cigarette smoke that seeps through the air to form storm clouds at the edges of the walls. Several Muggles sit cluttered around a table, drinks in their hands and cigarettes propped between their fingers, discussing something fervently in low voices. Another two men sit in silence on high stools by the bar, with vacant expressions. On the other side of the bar, away from the fog of smoke, a slim teenage girl sits perched on a stool, toying with a half-full glass of some brown liquid.

I run a hand through my hair, shaking the rain off, then make my way to the bar, sitting a few stools away from the Muggle girl. I can feel her sideways glance and ignore it. I slide a handful of Muggle coins across the counter and the barman takes them, jerking his head at me.

'What's for you?' he asks in a rough voice.

'Whatever that is.' I say, gesturing at the translucent brown liquid swirling in the Muggle girl's glass. The barman frowns as he turns away, reaching for a glass. _So what?_ I think, scowling. _Why should I know what Muggles drink?_

A moment later a glass of the brown substance slides across the counter into my open hand. The barman nods grimly and walks off to the other side of the bar.

'Brave of you.' A quiet voice comments to my right. I can hear the smile in the Muggle girl's voice and I ignore her, lifting the glass to my lips. The acrid, burning taste hits me like a blow to the head. I choke on my first mouthful then feel it slide, smouldering, down my throat. I turn my head to stare at her. A wry smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. Her face is pale, and tangled brown hair tumbles over her shoulders. She looks somehow familiar. Memories tug at the back of my mind.

'You look cold,' she says, her head on one side. I turn away, placing my drink back on the counter and blocking her out. I'm determined to ignore the shivering wet and cold seeping through my bones, now that she's pointed it out.

I flinch as a sudden surging, humid heat rises up through me, and steam rises from my instantly dry clothes. A rush of warm air, and I feel like I've been standing in the sun for hours. I stare once more at the teenager sipping nonchalantly from her glass, a quiet laughter in her hazel eyes. Her long legs swing forwards and backwards as she looks me up and down. 'Better?' she asks. That's when I look down to see the wand wrapped in her thin, tapering fingers, half hidden in the beaten combat jacket.

I look round quickly, studying the faces dotted around the bar. No one noticed. I return my attention to the smiling face beside me and glower in return. 'You didn't have to do that.' I mutter.

'Doesn't matter.' she shrugs. 'Don't see why _you_ didn't.'

'I thought you were a Muggle.' I say before I can stop myself. I eye her up and down- it was an easy mistake to make, she doesn't dress like a witch. Not that she would in a place like this- hard to be conspicuous dressed in robes and a cloak. Like her jacket, her jeans are faded and torn. Her T-shirt is clings tightly to her slim figure, and now I realise it bears the legend _Wyrd Sisters._ I figure her to be about seventeen or eighteen; that much made obvious by her wandwork.

'I knew you weren't.' she says confidently. There's a soft Irish burr in her voice that makes the swirl of recognition stir again at the base of my spine.

'What?'

'I knew you weren't a Muggle.'

'How?'

'You've got no clue about Muggle money- you just forked out enough for about fifteen drinks. And your hand keeps going to your wand. And I recognise you from somewhere.'

I look down and see that my fingers have again drifted towards the pocket where my wand is stashed. And I know where she recognises my face from. But I'm not planning on reminding anyone of that.

'Huh,' I nod non-commitally. Maybe she'll stop talking. Maybe she won't remember.

'So what are you doing here?' she asks bluntly, taking another sip of her drink. I catch myself wondering how she can possibly enjoy the acidic taste.

'Nothing.'

'Ah, of course,' she says with a conspiratorial wink. 'And it tastes like raspberries, by the way, if you slow down a bit instead of choking.'

'What?' I realise she's referring to the drink. _Can she read minds?_

Her lips twitch in a small half-smile. 'I can't read minds. Just faces.'

I shake it off and reach for my glass again, taking another burning gulp. Against my instincts, I hold the liquid in my mouth and feel the fire suddenly melt away. In an instant, the taste is sweet and fresh against my tongue. She's right. It tastes like raspberries, and summer, and sunshine poured out, light and saccharine.

'Told you,' she says, slightly smugly. 'It's one of mine.' She gestures to a dusty bottle on a shelf, the last in a row of bottles that vary in size and colour. I guess that each bottle contains a different Muggle drink.

'Yours?'

'It used to be something dull,' she says thoughtfully in her light, lilting voice, 'Some Muggle drink. So I had a bit of fun with it.' I nod and take another mouthful, waiting for the burning sensation to melt into coolness. I can feel her curious eyes on me again. 'I swear I know you from somewhere!' she says, exasperated, rapping her knuckles on the counter and gazing at me as she tries to figure it out. This is my cue to leave. She won't want me around anyway when she realises who I am.

'Yeah, well.'

I shove my still-full glass away and get up, moving towards the door.

'Wait!'

I open the door just in time for the wind to blow the downpour straight at me. The night is dark and the air smells of tin, fresh and biting. I walk out into the street. I can see her shadow moving next to mine when I pass under the orange glow of a streetlamp, and I walk faster. She has to take three steps for every one of mine. I take a left turn, edging past a white van and down an alleyway.

'Why are you following me?' I ask over my shoulder, scowling down at my new shadow.

'I don't know. Maybe I'd find out if you waited.' her voice is disarmingly bright, and for some reason that kindles a white-hot tongue of rage, flaming inside me.

'Well, stop!' I shout the last word, glaring down at her, feeling the anger shuddering through my body. She stops dead under the half-light seeping from the other end of the alleyway.

'Why are you like this?'

'Like what?' I yell.

'So angry,' she finishes quietly.

'I think,' I say in a low voice, breathing heavily as I try to control myself, 'If you were like me, you'd be angry too.' I turn away, and start walking again.

'And just what makes you so special?' I don't know how I hear that soft voice over the storm, but I do, and when I look back she hasn't moved an inch. The rain cascading down between the buildings has soaked her, and her curls are drenched and stuck to her face. The drops move like tears down her face.

'I know where you recognise me from,' I say, not meeting her eye.

'Where?'

'I'm-' I begin and she says the name with me, recognition in her eyes. '-Aaron Cloud.'

'Yes.'

She falls silent. I look into her eyes expecting disgust, hatred, fear. What kills me instead is the understanding and empathy that shines out of them. I turn on my heel and run.

I run through dead streets, scattering the reflections in puddles as I go. When I'm four streets away, I stop, gathering my breath and waiting for the white lights to stop dancing in my vision.

I look up. The sky curls angrily in on itself, and in the distance lightning splits the clouds with a pointed tongue. I can smell it, metallic and sharp, like the stab of winter.

My wand is in my hand, and I focus on a place in my head- an empty tube station, the wind whistling like a voice through the tunnels. The world begins the whirl sickeningly and the pressure squeezes me from all sides. I hear the crack inside my head as I Apparate, and the dark street disappears, but not before I see the line; it hovers in midair, thin and thread-like, glowing cerulean blue, streaking through the street away from me and vanishing around a corner, thrumming at the rate of my own heartbeat.

**So what did you think? **

**Next chapter coming soon!**


	2. So Many Names

**In case no-one's realised, the name at the beginning of each chapter shows which point of view the chapter is written from- sorry, should have made that clearer.**

**So far we've had mostly a lot of angst- the clever ones among you will have started to guess what the deal is with Aaron and hopefully you'll have an even better idea after this chapter. **

**Soundtrack for this chapter: The Hill (Marketa Irglova) Everlong (Foo Fighters) and Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2)**

**Enjoy!**

**~TreesAreGreen~**

**Chapter Two.**

**Ellie**

I can hear a rushing sound in my ears as his name sparks recognition. Suddenly I can look past this stranger's face and see familiar eyes.

'You're-' I begin.

'Yes,' he snarls.

I don't know what to say to him. I know what he assumes- he thinks I will despise him, that I'll be afraid or run or fight. But he can't possibly know whats in my head. My hands tremble as I open my mouth to say something- anything- to let him know I don't hate him, I'm not scared. But the look in his eyes is suddenly sick and anguished and I can only stand there, struck dumb, as he turns and sprints down the alleyway.

Without thinking I pull out my wand, and as the words come whispering out from my lips I feel the rush of the magic as it pulses, pale and shimmering, a link between me and him.

I think of home. The crack as I Apparate sounds like lightning as I disappear and reappear on my own street. I live in a small semi-detached house on a Muggle estate, rooming with two friends. None of us can afford a place of our own, and fresh out of school like this it's hard to pay the bills as it is. I've only got a part-time job at the Ministry as an intern, and while Erin has a job as well, Abby is on a training course at St Mungo's every day where they pay her a pittance to cover the rent.

I hurry towards our front door. I could have Apparated inside but for some reason I hate that. I prefer to use the door. It's freezing out here though. The rain has stopped but it's February and an icy chill hangs on the air.

'What happened to you?' Erin asks shrewdly the second I walk through the door. She's standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking harassed, two pots bubbling on the stove, and a ladle (dripping tomato sauce onto the floor) hovering in the air in front of her.

'What?' I ask irritably. I'm tired: It's almost one in the morning. Which brings me to my next question. 'It's one in the morning! Why are you… cooking?'

Erin doesn't answer for a moment, focusing on guiding the ladle back into the pot. She frowns at the dark red stain on the floor. '_Scourgify_,' she mutters, flicking her wand at the offending splatter of sauce. Then she looks up at me. 'Abby's working the night shift and I couldn't sleep. This is tomorrow's dinner.'

'Really? We have to eat that?'

'Shut up.' She turns her attention to the pots for a moment. A large yellow pepper breaks cleanly in half in midair and the seeds fly out of the hollow cavity and deposit themselves on the floor two inches from the bin. Erin sighs and jabs her wand at them. 'Now, what happened to you?' she repeats again.

'I'm not that late. I went for a drink.'

'Yes you are, it's one in the morning. Where?'

'O'Connelly's, that Muggle bar near the coast?'

'The coast?' Erin turns around with exasperation all over her face. 'Why?'

I perch myself on the kitchen counter. 'I wanted to hear the sea.'

Erin sighs loudly and rolls her eyes at me. 'It's freezing. I'm surprised it hasn't iced over. And what happened there?' she asks pointedly.

'Why did something have to happen?' I ask, reaching over to grab a piece of chopped pepper.

'I can tell,' she says, giving me a look.

'I saw Aaron Cloud,' I say thoughtfully. The second the name leaves my lips, the knife, pepper and ladle all crash out of the air and a fine spray of tomato sauce leaps from its pot and stains Erin's blonde head a rich red as she jumps in surprise.

'What?' she says, her green eyes widening. She stumbles towards me, grabbing my shoulders. 'Are you okay? Did you tell someone? What happened?'

'I'm fine,' I say.

'You have to be more careful!' she says, waving the ladly wildly.

'He didn't do anything to me,' I say loudly. 'He's not like that.'

'He's a _killer_,' Erin says, shocked. 'He's a monster, Ellie!'

'No,' I shake my head. 'He's not.' I think of the anguished face, the defeated soul in his eyes. The Ministry told us he was a terrible man, a murderous animal, in the pocket of He Who Must Not Be Named. But he was scared. I saw it in his eyes, the terror and the pain. This wasn't a murderer.

'You know what he did!' Erin says. 'Those people he killed...' Her face is a mask of horror. I know what she's remembering. Tragedies that spanned the front page of the _Daily Prophet_, day after day. Photographs and names, so many names…

'It wasn't him. They never had any proof!' I think back to the _Daily Prophet_ headlines. _All evidence points to Cloud_. But what evidence? They never had any. 'I've always known he wasn't a killer.' I always believed in him.

_I knew Cloud from Hogwarts. I was a third-year and he was a fifth-year when he vanished. It was 1973. After he disappeared, rumours flew around the school, whispers, dark things. I didn't want to believe that anyone from Hogwarts could go bad, but whenever I brought that up, everyone had the same answer: what school did the Dark Lord go to? Yes. But I never thought Cloud was anything like You Know Who. There wasn't any evil in him._

_One time, I remember, one girl asking a teacher what had happened to Aaron Cloud. The teacher replied that Cloud was a monster, better away from Hogwarts. A boy in my class, Remus, leapt up and smashed the window in a rage. I guess they must have been friends, despite the age gap. I'd always thought Remus a little strange, but I liked the crowd he hung out with, me and my friends joined up with them sometimes. I was on the Quidditch team with his friend Potter: hot, but arrogant- he was a Chaser, but because we had access to the ball crate- being on the team- he would crack out the Snitch between lessons and mess around with it. He thought it impressed girls more than the Quaffle would have._

_It wasn't until a year later, when we were in 4__th__ year, and I'd become better friends with Remus, James and the rest, that I found out why Remus had overreacted and broken that window. That was the year Pipe Harris joined the team, replacing the other Beater. Together, Pipe and I were unstoppable. I did the speedy work, darting all over the place to intercept Bludgers, but Pipe could then hit them to the other end of the Quidditch field. And soon we were more than just team-mates…_

_Cloud came to practice once or twice, with the rest of Potter's gang, just to watch. He wasn't much of a flier himself, but he seemed interested enough just to watch us training._

_Remus wouldn't tell me much about Cloud- his own story he shared with me freely but he refused to pass on what Cloud had told him. _Aaron Cloud seemed like a nice enough guy whenever I saw him- in the common room with his friends (he was a popular guy) or in Hogsmeade or in the grounds. And he seemed happy.__

Nothing like the desperate, angry character I saw today.

I know he never killed those people.

I'm not denying what he is. But all I'm saying is that he wouldn't kill anyone. Not voluntarily.

Erin has gone back to stirring the sauce by hand, muttering under her breath. Her cheeks are still flushed and I can tell she's frustrated.

'I might go and see Pipe.' I say quietly, slipping my shoes back on. Erin's head snaps back up.

'Are you serious? At one in the morning? Yeah, cause he'll really thank you for that. Just go to bed, Ellie!' My shoes come off again. I know she's right. I so much want to be held right now, though.

I want Pipe.

But Erin has a point. It's one in the morning. I have to be at work at nine. As I head off up to my room, I hear her voice come drifting up the stairs. 'Tomorrow, you need to go to the Ministry and tell them when and where you saw Cloud and what happened. Okay?'

I don't answer, just throw myself down on the bed, fully clothed, pointing my wand half-heartedly at the door so that it swings shut with a click.

The full moon stares balefully at me through the open window.

**Please review! It would seriously make my day :)**

**Next chapter up soon..**

**~TreesAreGreen~**


	3. Full Moon

**Pretty sure you've all figure out by now what Aaron's deal is- I haven't spelled it out so far but in this chapter I'm finally just going to say it.**

**Please review! It really honestly would make my day :)**

**Soundtrack for this chapter: I'm Not Okay (My Chemical Romance) Atrophy (Red Jumpsuit Apparatus) and Monster (Skillet)**

**~TreesAreGreen~**

**Aaron**

I know where I know her from. As soon as I'm gone, I realise: she's from Hogwarts. She was a couple years below me. What was her name? Annie? No, Ellie. Ellie O'Kenny. Remus' friend. They were friends, right? He mentioned her sometimes.

I wonder if she remembers me how I was before- or if she just thinks of me as the face in the _Prophet_, the name on the Aurors' lips.

I run in a haze of confusion and anger through streets I don't know. I'm somewhere on the outskirts of London. The rain has stopped and it's this that brings me to my senses. The clouds will clear soon, and I need to be gone. I'm exhausted and it takes more effort to Apparate this time, but in a second I feel the heat and pressure on all sides once more.

I stumble out of thin air with a crack, and fall to my knees on the stony beach. Far away, I can hear the sound of the Brighton pier's fairground: the loud, garish music and the delighted laughter. I scramble to my feet and run and keep running, far away from the lights and sounds until I find a familiar deserted stretch of beach, and crevices and caves in the dark rock. I've come here a few times before- it's far enough from the town that no-one will come here. I pull off my shoes and jacket and throw them to the ground in a dark crevice and stare up at the sky as the last cloud drifts away, revealing the moon.

I look down at my skin, pale in the silver light. I feel the burn spreading under my skin and the terrible, wrenching pain in all my bones. Far away from people and houses, faced with only the sea, I can do nothing as my body twists and contorts. Just before I lose my mind and my control, the last thing I hear is my own mournful howling.

_I was sixteen. My OWLS were coming round the corner. I had perfect grades and all my teachers assumed I would come through with several 'Outstanding's. I had many friends, my parents were proud of me, my future looked bright. And I was in love. Her name was Linnie, and she was beautiful, sweet, wonderful. We'd been going out for a year when it happened._

_It was the holidays. I was in London, shopping for a present for Linnie. It was her birthday in a week's time, the day after we went back to school and I had no idea what to get her, so I wandered around, going in and out of shops, waiting for inspiration to hit me._

_I found it, after hours of fruitless searching. A charm bracelet with snowflakes of different sizes hanging off it. It was perfect- her birthday was in January, and when we got back the grounds would be wreathed in snow. _

_I couldn't figure out the Muggle 'tube' system so I walked home. I was almost home and took a shortcut through a narrow street with no lights. _

_Stupid. _

_I could barely see three feet in front of me. The fear crept up my spine and I started to turn back when I heard a noise behind me. I didn't have time to react before something- some animal- collided with me, hard, from the back._

_Claws ripped through my clothes, my skin. I couldn't feel the pain at first, just the heat of my own blood. Then I felt it._

_Agony._

_I knew I was screaming but I couldn't hear it. I could only hear the rush of my heartbeat in my ears, the panic of my breath. _

_I thought it was over, the frenzied ripping and tearing had stopped. I thought it had run away, left me to die in peace. Then I felt the hot breath on my face. I wasn't even afraid any more. The pain coursing through every part of me was unbearable; I lay there and waited for my throat to be torn out, for the swift end. No more pain. I waited for death. _

_It didn't come. Before I passed out, the last thing I heard the sound of a man's cold laughter._

_I found out later it was my dad who found me. When I didn't come home, my parents and some of their friends went out and looked for me. It didn't take them long- I was two streets from home. He Apparated me straight to St. Mungo's. I woke up two days later. My parents had already been told what the Healers had discovered._

_The snowflake charm was on my bedside table in the ward- they'd found it on the ground next to my outstretched hand. When Linnie came to see me, I told her to take it. After I told her what the Healers said, she put the bracelet on her slim wrist and took my hand. 'I'm never taking it off,' she said. There were tears in her eyes._

_Afterwards, I spoke to one of the St. Mungo's counsellors. 'There's no reason you can't live a normal life,' he said. 'There are potions that can help you through this. We're more worried about the attack itself than the consequences.'_

_It was easy for them to say. They wouldn't have to carry this burden their whole lives. They wouldn't be affected by it forever._

_At Hogwarts, the only one who really understood was a boy called Remus Lupin, two years younger than me. Hogwarts had pulled out all the stops- built a secret tunnel for him to transform in, where he couldn't hurt anyone. I was only at Hogwarts for a couple of months after the attack, only long enough for one transformation. Once Remus and I were both in the tunnel and had transformed, I felt somehow better to have him there. We were no danger to each other, and I felt somehow more lucid. But that was the one and only time._

_After that, everything changed. _

Dawn is breaking over the horizon as I wake up, face-down in the stony ground. My battered body protests as I haul myself into a sitting position so that I can evaluate the damage. My fingers are torn and bleeding, and there are long, pale scratches in the dark rock next to me. Two and two. My clothes are ripped, but this is normal. There are deep gouges in my legs and stomach. I find my jacket and pull out my wand. '_Vulnera sanentur,_' I mutter, but my hand shakes and my skin begins to smoke. 'Shit!' I try again, and again, and finally the skin starts to knit together, leaving thin, white scars as reminders. '_Tergeo_.' The dried blood vanishes from my clothes.

I wish it worked like that with memories, too.

That's when I realise something. Even now, in the pale morning light, I can see the ethereal lines, ghostly, hovering in the air and stretching away from me into the sky. I scramble up to my feet and squint to see it. And now I can see that these swirling blue lines lead directly to my heart. When I try to touch them, my hand goes straight through them. I rush out onto the open beach and stare upwards, trying to see where they go, but they are lost in the aching blue sky.

I wander through Brighton for a few hours, and grab breakfast from a chip shop. Not the most balanced of diets, but I'm starving. In some ways this is a good sign. The bright sky, noise of the streets and screeching seagulls contrast strangely with the events of last night. I can pretend it was a dream- or, I suppose, that this is. Either is oddly comforting.

I think of the girl in the bar last night- Ellie. I wonder what she's doing now. For some reason, I can't shake the way she looked at me last night. Like she didn't hate me. Like she wasn't scared. I haven't seen anyone look me in the eyes like that for a long time.

The more I think of her, the more I remember. She's changed in the past few years. I think of the small, slender girl with short, dark hair curling under her ears, on the Quidditch team. She was a Beater. I remember everyone making fun of that choice until they saw her in action.

Now, I wish I'd gotten to know her better. From the look on her face- so understanding, so gentle- she might have been the only one not to turn away from me.

_I didn't know who it was, at first. The guy that got me. At first I could even empathise with him: I knew how it felt to transform, how it felt to lose control and turn into a monster. I started to forgive him, knowing it wasn't truly his fault._

_That is, until Lupin told me his story- how Greyback had positioned himself before transforming, so that he would bite him. All to punish Lupin's father. _

_It made me start to think, and I vowed to find out the identity of the werewolf who bit me. Every day that passed, I was more sure that it hadn't been an accident. A werewolf, in London, and so near to my home? The more I thought about it, it didn't seem possible that it could have been just a tragic coincidence, as the Healers told us it was._

_My parents told me not to think about it. What was done was done, and I shouldn't worry about it. They were scared of what I might do._

_What I did._

I have no-where to go, so I wander back down towards the sea. I can hear it's roar from far off, but soon I'm standing barefoot on the stones, trainers in hand, faced with the huge grey-blue expanse.

Before I know it, I'm walking forwards until the icy cold water laps over my feet, ankles, half-way up my shins. Idiot. It's February. But I stay there, feeling the waves move, sending shivers through me.

I measure myself against the curvature of the Earth.

**Chapter 4 coming soon...**

**Review? Please? :)**

**~TreesAreGreen~**


	4. Some Kind Of Good News

**Weekend = free time = another chapter, so here it is :) Please recommend to your friends! And some reviews would be pretty amazing too!**

**Taking a break from angst for a while, and we're getting some good news and bringing in a few Marauders. **

**Soundtrack for this chapter: Runaway (The Corrs) The Only Exception (Paramore) and Hard To Concentrate (Red Hot Chili Peppers)**

**~TreesAreGreen~**

**Ellie**

My alarm goes off at the same ungodly hour as always. I snake an arm out from my duvet and turn it off before snuggling back down into the warm nest of blankets. Before I can fall asleep, however, something hard raps me sharply on the head. And again. And again. I flail my arms and disentangle myself, sitting up to find my own alarm clock hovering next to my head, dancing in and out to hit me. Erin stands in the doorway of my room, waving her wand backwards and forwards to direct the clock. She looks ridiculously perky. I wait for her to stop hitting me with my alarm clock, then throw it at her. She waves her wand again and it soars away from her and lands neatly on my desk.

'I've made coffee,' she says smartly.

'Good, cause otherwise I'd have had to kill you,' I grumble, sliding out of bed and wincing at the cold. She rolls her eyes and leaves. My work robes are lying over the end of my bed and I shiver my way into them. I wish (not for the first time) that pajamas were acceptable work clothes.

I arrive at the Ministry five minutes before I'm due at work- a pretty extraordinary feat. I woke up late and as I walk through the gleaming foyer I'm sure my hair's all over the place. Self-consciously I reach up to push at a few loose curls, smiling politely at familiar people walking past.

I sign myself in and make my way to the office where I'm interning. When I first started here it took forever to find my way around but now I can navigate the shining marble corridors with ease. I step into an elevator already crammed with people. Two owls carrying interdepartmental memos sit on the wooden bar at the back. The elevator jerks upwards and sideways and the doors slide open again. 'Department of Magical Law Enforcement,' says a voice coolly from overhead, and I step out, along with a few other people.

'Alright, O'Kenny?' someone says cheerily as I walk into the office. I look around but there's no-one around- that is, until a grinning face pops into view from inside a cupboard. Huge stacks of files and papers litter the floor around the man's feet. He is short, round and wears enormous glasses which perch on his nose like they're always in danger of falling off. He also has a broad Dublin accent. I have a feeling this is why I got this internship. Still, I'm not complaining. Arnold Connolly is the Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office, and for someone in such a serious job, he's always laughing at something or other. He used to work for the Ministry in Ireland until 1968, when he fell in love with an English witch and moved to London.

'We're looking at a light day today, O'Kenny!' he twinkles from behind those plate-sized specs. 'No-one's Used Magic Improperly overnight apart from one fellow in Sussex who transfigured a postbox to eat letters.' The role of the Improper Use of Magic Office is basically to find out if anyone is used magic irresponsibly, or showed magic in front of Muggles, or used magic underage, all that sort of thing. Seeing as I'm an intern though, I'm mainly just supposed to sort out the paperwork (of which there is, in my opinion, a ridiculous amount).

At that moment an owl swoops into the office, dropping a memo on the floor. I pick it up. 'Someone in York has charmed their neighbour's television,' I read out, 'So it will only receive broadcasts from 1960.' Connolly laughs loudly.

'Send it to Misuse of Muggle Artifacts!' he says, handing the memo back to the owl. It gives an irritable hoot and flies out again, sending papers everywhere in its wake. 'I have to say,' Connolly says, still laughing, 'I wish I thought of some of these things.'

I just smile. Even at his age, I reckon Connolly's still about my age at heart.

Later, when he's busied himself with a pile of forms ('damned paperwork!') I slip next door, to the Magical Law Enforcement Archive. The room is long and wide, and filled with filing cabinets and shelving units. This room contains all the records on anyone who has ever been investigated by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, dating back to about 1700-and-something. The air is musty with the smell of old ink and parchment. The cabinets at the front are shiny and new, the papers inside stacked neatly in alphabetical order. The ones towards the back are hundreds of years old- some completely illegible, the paper crumbling and ink fading. But it's not any of those that I'm looking for- I'm after something much more recent.

I pull out my wand and murmur, '_Accio._' A filing cabinet drawer slides open and a thick file soars across the room into my hand.

I look down and check that it's the right one. The name on the front reads _Aaron Cloud._

When I finish at 5pm, someone is waiting in the foyer for me. I'm digging through my bag as I walk out of the lift, and I don't notice him at first. Then I look up and see that oh-so familiar figure. Forgetting dignity, I run towards him, throwing my arms round his neck.

'Woah!' Pipe says, laughing. 'I've been away two _weeks,_ not two _months_.'

'All the same to me,' I say, standing on tiptoes to kiss him.

He pushes me away gently. 'Isn't that your boss over there?' he says. I look round. Connolly stands by the reception desk, watching. He winks at me and I blush bright red.

'We should go outside,' I say quickly.

'Good plan,' Pipe agrees with a grin, and loops his arm round my waist as we walk across the marble floor to the main entrance. We walk along the busy street and down a tree-lined lane leading to the park. The ground is littered with a thick carpet of leaves, all coated with a think veneer of glittering frost.

I wait until we're out of sight of the main street and then stop walking. There's no-one around. Pipe brushes a strand of hair out of my eyes and then presses his hand into the small of my back, closing the gap between us. My hand is on his chest; I can feel his heartbeat in my palm. His eyes are so deep I think I'm going to fall inside them.

'I missed you,' I say.

In reply, he bends down towards me kisses me. At first our lips meet softly, and then the fire starts blazing through my veins and we kiss hungrily, like two people who have forgotten what it's like. For a dizzying moment I can't tell what is me and what is Pipe- I don't know whose soft skin this is, whose heart beating so loudly I'm sure everyone can hear it. We go from two people to one, joined at the heart.

Then he pulls away. 'Why'd you stop?' I say.

'Thought you might want to breathe,' he replies teasingly, stroking my cheek.

'Breathing is overrated,' I say, shaking my head, before standing on my toes to kiss him all over again.

'I got an owl earlier,' Pipe says later as we're walking around the park, hand in hand, 'From James.'

'Oh yeah? What'd he say?'

'He wanted to meet up.'

'Oh, sure. When?' '

Today.'

That surprises me. 'Kind of short notice, isn't it?'

'He said he had some news.'

Knowing James, news could be anything ranging from, _I got a haircut_ to _I'm moving to Australia to become a shepherd and live the rest of my live in silent meditation._ Either way, I haven't seen him since Christmas and my evening consisted of… nothing. So, sure. Since Pipe is the guy with the details, I hold on to him tightly as he Apparates to the café outside London where James is meeting us. I feel the sudden rush of warmth as we step inside from the cold. Pipe pushes me towards the back corner of the café, where a couple sits on a cushy red sofa. The guy has glasses and dark hair which sticks up messily at the back, and the girl is slim with red hair tumbling down her back. She turns around and our eyes meet.

'LILY!'

'ELLIE!'

We run at each other, screaming incoherently. The waitress starts to come over, a disapproving look on her face, but as we hug tightly, a smile twitches into life on her face and she walks back into the kitchen. When we've finished hugging and squealing, we look round at the guys, who have slumped back into the comfy seats and are watching us with matching smirks. 'Girls,' Pipe says, shaking his head in derision.

'I know,' James agrees with a long-suffering expression. Lily and I stare incredulously at them for a moment, then turn back to each other and start chattering wildly, each trying to talk at once.

'I can't believe how long it's been! I swear I haven't seen you since Christmas! I mean, I was just thinking the other day about-'

'-and I saw it and it reminded me of you! And how is everyone back home? And oh I _have_ to tell you what's been happening at work, it's crazy, I was just thinking-'

'-and the second he said that I just knew it had to be you! It's always been your kind of thing to-'

'-a chicken, because I know that was her favourite, and she was all, I'm a vegetarian now!'

'GIRLS!' James and Pipe bellow simultaneously. Some of the Muggles sitting near the window glare over at us and Lily and I shit up for a moment, giggling breathlessly. We sit down next to the guys.

'So James, what was that news? Something good?'

'Oh definitely,' James says with a grin, winking at Lily. She blushes and something catches my eye. Something sparkling in the soft lamplight… I look at Lily and she nods violently, smiling widely. In a split second we're hugging and screaming again.

'_Girls_.' James says, rolling his eyes.

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